The people in power have to start representing the interests of the millennials. This will only happen when people of that generation are in power, or people in power are being influenced by them.

This.

One of the reasons I suspect AOC gets so much attention (apart from her very unabashed personality) is because she represents the Millenial generation, always ridiculed as being "lazy" and "coddled". Finally someone in Power who:

* is a millenial and

* understands millenial priorities

Ironically, the policy proposals that the most outspoken Millenials embrace would actually strengthen programs that help the older generation.

Millennials don’t seem to have a clue what’s in their best interest so I’m going to disagree with you. If there were any solid ideas coming from anybody in terms of helping millennials those ideas would have political traction. To think that only millennials can represent millennial interests is stupid.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Millennial lives and issues are far removed from the current establishment to be completely alien to people in power at present. To be disingenuous enough to believe millennials don't have a clue what's in their best interest is stupid.

Considering a majority of millennials support socialism, but also cannot provide a meaningful definition of the term...

I don't think most have a serious position worth considering. I say this as someone lumped in this demographic whipping boy.

There is plenty to be legitimately angry about too. I just don't trust this generation to come up with solutions that aren't literally "let's try real communism. This time it will work!"

> There is plenty to be legitimately angry about too. I just don't trust this generation to come up with solutions that aren't literally "let's try real communism. This time it will work!"

What makes you feel this generation would go that far? I haven't seen anything that's led me to believe they think this way, in my understanding, they are more aware of and accepting of fundamentally "socialist" concepts such as government assistance and high-taxation. That's a far cry from communism.

What's wrong with that? We're trying 'real capitalism' and that's not working.

Also, there are large and loud political movements pushing for Scandinavian-style democratic socialism which has been successful, it's simply dismissive to act like all millennials don't understand politics and are just trying to be edgy.

> If there were any solid ideas coming from anybody in terms of helping millennials those ideas would have political traction.

The United States government is coming out of a month-long shutdown because the idea with political traction (the big, beautiful wall) was completely unworkable.

Let's not underestimate what flies and doesn't fly in the arena of American political thought.

The rising popularity of socialism and distrust/hatred of capitalism among young people would indicate that they have a very clear idea of what is in their best interest.

That's pretty straightforward in principle. What they need to do is the same as older folk i.e. vote in large numbers for their own financial interest.

Politicians are fairly simple people at heart. If pandering to you will get them (re-)elected then they'll pander to you.

In all seriousness, probably something that baby boomers can't escape - death.

And then the children of the dead, wealthy baby boomers will pick up where they left off.

...which is why we need to fix the estate tax. Large inheritances benefit only a few, often to the detriment of others. One could even argue that it doesn't benefit the few much either, because unearned wealth tends to bring its own psychological problems. I know all of the arguments against a robust estate tax, I've heard them literally hundreds of times, but I find them unconvincing. If we want to keep claiming we live in a meritocracy, the effects of an estate tax on ensuring (restoring) equal opportunity are not optional.

You'll forgive my skepticism in thinking that the folks who would be affected by confiscatory estate taxes will simply resort to more complex structures to avoid it--trusts, corporations onshore or off-, etc. Moreover, it isn't a settled matter that high estate taxes are per se "fair." The deceased already paid taxes on all that income, why should the government again get to help itself to what's left over?

I've seen this "double taxation" canard a hundred times already. It's lazy, perhaps even dishonest to the extent that it ignores obvious reality. Fact is, money is generally taxed whenever it moves. Income tax and sales tax are obvious examples. Why should inheritance, which is an essentially similar transfer, be exempt?

> If we want to keep claiming we live in a meritocracy, the effects of an estate tax on ensuring (restoring) equal opportunity are not optional.

As of 2018 a couple can leave >$22 Million without paying any tax on it. That's enough for your children, their children and their children's children (and potentially on and on) to never have to work. Generational wealth like this is how we get and perpetuate "classes".

> What is the catalyst for any action/change in regards to reversing these trends?

My unscientific opinion on this is that these articles will continue to appear as living standards in rich countries continues to fall due to living costs outstripping wage growth, and the outsourcing of more and more work to other countries.

The wealth enjoyed by the rich world in the post-WW2 order has been built up by international cooperative agreements done to maintain peace but also generate income and build markets (Highway Bill, GI Bill, Marshall Plan, EEA trading bloc, GATT/WTO etc).

These days, it feels like we are experiencing the last trickle of dividends from those days. The structure of the economy has been predominantly service-oriented economy for decades now, but now it's about doing more with fewer people.

Realistically, I don't know what kinds of jobs will continue to provide middle-class salaries in the volumes that were available before. If you worked as a customer support rep, you've been offshored. If you worked as a trucker, automation is coming; you won't be fired, but you won't be driving as much and you won't get paid as much.

Thousands of trucker and miners looking to 'retrain' as front-end developers is a pipe dream pushed by politicians since time immemorial. There simply aren't enough jobs in those roles.

Revolution or some other structural change like lack of resources (including labor) that shake up the power dynamics.

The extended government shutdown had me wary for this exact reason. I wonder how many more weeks it could have gone before some very serious change could have happened very quickly.